


Running Away

by RebeccaKay27



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 14:43:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2273610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebeccaKay27/pseuds/RebeccaKay27
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They usually ran much further; it was obvious that something was wrong. Meryl never tired after only a few miles.</p><p>“Charlie-” she wheezed, reaching out a hand toward him, keeping him away.</p><p>“Do you need something? A drink of water?” his trade-mark concern made an appearance.</p><p>“No,” she stood up, straight, finally having her breath back. She looked at him with intense eyes, intent to get an answer to the question that plagued her every day of her life, “Charlie, why didn’t we ever try?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Away

She watches him as she runs.

 

Always just half a step behind, she has the perfect vantage point to openly stare. Her eyes trail over his back and the way his muscles tense underneath his shirt. His long, lean muscles pulse and contract, straining under the pressure of their five mile run. Moisture pools at the small of his back, gently coating the hem of his t-shirt.

 

She studies the way he moves, confidently forward. She thinks about how she’s always just behind, not quite quick enough. She’s never been able to match his exact stride.

 

Their running imitates their life.

 

She had always been just a step behind, never quite able to catch up with his light. He had confessed his feelings to her once, and she had shot them down in the name of their careers.

 

But she had loved him too.

 

She had loved him so much it terrified her.

 

And now she was a step behind, as he ran with confident strides toward his future. He had a house, he had a dog, he had a fiancée, and she had the remnants of a broken dream.

 

There were so many words left unspoken, because they didn’t seem to factor into the equation anymore.

 

If she let herself open up to him, if she let that love go, would she find a way to compress it back into the small box she had stuffed it down into long ago?

 

He had been the one with the confession, and like muscle-memory she had relaxed into him. How could she have responded with any other words when those four had felt so right.

 

_“I love you, too.”_

 

And just as she had worried, those words and the feelings that were swept up in them like a tornado, became a torrent. Those emotions were a deluge that wouldn’t quit.

 

Just like she had feared, they wouldn’t go back into their box.

 

Acting like everything was normal, she continued to live her life. She played the part of dutiful partner and supportive friend. She went through the motions with as much fervor as she could muster.

 

She changed her plans in Hawaii, but tweeted her congratulations.

 

She showed up at practice, but found a reason to leave the second her skates came off.

 

She contributed to the new programs, but didn’t share her feelings about the way it felt to skate to the song _Say Something_.

 

Because she was giving up on him, she was giving up on _them_ , and she was giving up on herself. She had to. It was the only way to still be able to breathe.

 

But panting in the mid-morning sun, she couldn’t help but _want_ to _say something_. She didn’t _want_ to give up. She _would_ be the one if he wanted her to.

 

Why did life always have to imitate art?

 

She forced her legs to stop, and she bent over, hands on her knees. She took a deep breath, two.

 

It took him a moment before he realized he couldn’t hear her breathing hard behind him. It took a moment before he could feel the loss of her presence.

 

“What’s up?” he asked, jogging back to where she was.

 

They usually ran much further; it was obvious that something was wrong. Meryl never tired after only a few miles.

 

“Charlie-” she wheezed, reaching out a hand toward him, keeping him away.

 

“Do you need something? A drink of water?” his trade-mark concern made an appearance.

 

“No,” she stood up, straight, finally having her breath back. She looked at him with intense eyes, intent to get an answer to the question that plagued her every day of her life, “Charlie, why didn’t we ever try?”

 

“Try what?” he asked, trying to sound sincere.

 

“Charlie, stop. I’m sick of pretending,” she brushed her hair out of her face, and shifted her balance from foot to foot.

 

“What do you want me to say?” he shrugged, defeat obvious in his stance.

 

“Why didn’t you fight me? Why didn’t you call me out on my lie? Why didn’t you believe in us more?” Meryl fired questions at him with lightning speed, questions that she had pondered the answers to for almost a decade.

 

What had pushed the trigger? What was the straw to break the camel’s back? What was the tipping point at which she could hold back no longer? Nothing and everything, just a moment of clarity.

 

“Meryl, _you_ were the one who made yourself perfectly clear, so don’t try to dig up old ghosts when there’s no _point,_ ” he spat at her, fiercer than his normal tone.

 

“You just let me go!” she shouted. She knew they were in a public park, she knew that if people were in the area they could hear, but she needed to get it out. Her feelings had poured out of her chest in Sochi, and she had tried and failed to put them to rest. She needed to be honest, as much for him as it was for herself.

 

“You pushed me away!” Charlie shouted, taking a step forward and pointing an accusatory finger in her face.

 

“I didn’t have all the answers, Charlie! I was doing what I thought was best,” she backed away from him, seething with anger. “Why did you always listen and act so dutiful?”

 

“Are you kidding?” he scoffed. “I was the one who put myself out there in the first place. Who are you to take us eight years in the past? You. Said. No.”

 

“Charlie, we were too young to make that kind of decision,” she tried to defend herself. “Why couldn’t you have waited until it made more sense for us to decide our entire future? You knew that if we were going to be that it wouldn’t be short-term.”

 

“I waited for years. I tried to show you in our programs, I tried to show you by how I was your friend, I tried to show you I was good enough for you by the way I quit singles and hockey,” there was a sense of urgency in his voice, and an intensity in his eyes she had never seen.

 

“But you moved on,” she croaked, a single tear making its slow trek down her cheek.

 

“I didn’t move on, Meryl. I wallowed. I let myself be swallowed up by our career, because that seemed like the only time we were truly on the same page. Then I stumbled upon Tanith, and she loved me. You know for a fact I didn’t love her at first,” he took a deep breath knowing that those were words he never should have said. “I didn’t. Not for a long time.”

 

“But you gave in,” the words were barely a whisper, but her face said it all. How could you have given up on me? How could you have let that dream die?

 

“I fell in love with her. And it wasn’t like falling in love with you… it was slow. It caught me off-guard, but it felt safe. I didn’t feel like I was floating in endless space anymore. I was so _sick_ of floating,” Charlie admitted, wiping the dripping sweat from his brow.

 

“So what do I do now?” she broke. The tears she had been holding at bay began to wash over her, and on one hand they felt like absolution and on the other they felt like the sin itself.

 

He had ruined her for all other men. Didn’t he know that? She could never love someone like she loved him.

 

Everyone else would be a silver medalist in her heart.

 

“You move on, Meryl. You forget, and you keep going,” he grumbled, crossing his arms defensively. An obvious act.

 

“Maybe we’re not all good at faking, Charlie,” she seethed, the anger beginning to rise once more.

 

“Well then fucking pretend—I mean, Christ! What do you want me to do?” he lunged at her, his face mere inches from hers.

 

She could feel his hot breath against her face. She was crying wet, hot, angry tears and he was yelling in her face.

 

This was new.

 

They rarely showed they felt this much.

 

And she did the unthinkable.

 

Her hands grasped his face, pulling him into her. Her lips hung just a millimeter from his, and she spoke before he could even process that she was so close. “Tell me you don’t love me,” she spoke with such conviction the voice didn’t even sound like her own. It felt foreign in her chest. It bubbled, foreign in her throat. It tasted foreign on her tongue.

 

“I don’t love you,” the words tumbled out of his chest so fake, they were like a cheap counterfeit of his feelings.

 

“Liar,” she growled.

 

“I don’t love you,” he tried to put more emphasis in each syllable, another attempt at forced acting, because he knew if he told the truth he was damned.

 

He couldn’t tear down Tanith just to lift Meryl up.

 

He had done that for far too long.

 

Tanith was too good.

 

And Meryl could see the wheels spinning in Charlie’s head. She could see the nobs turning, and the buttons being pushed, and the levers being pulled and shifted. He was like the Wizard of Oz, hidden behind a curtain of his indifference.

 

“Coward,” she challenged him, still holding his face far too close to her own.

 

“I fucking love you, okay?!” he pushed her away too quickly, causing her to stumble backwards. She barely caught herself before she sprawled onto the pavement.

 

She could see that he wanted to ask if she was okay.

 

“So do something about it,” she raged quietly, anger causing her to breathe unsteadily. “You think that being a man is honoring your word, and following-through with false promises you made long ago. But being a man is standing up for your true feelings. It’s staring everyone in the eye and doing the _right_ thing. Just because it’s _easy_ and it’s _safe_ and it _works_ , doesn’t make it right.”

 

She saw his face break from anger to sadness in a sudden wave that crashed over him. “I can’t,” he muttered.

 

“Then you’re not the man I thought you were,” she spoke with crystal-clear conviction before turning around and walking away from him.


End file.
